While many recycling centers are unable to recycle hard plastic cups like Solo cups, Green Grove volunteers were able to collect and send the cups to New Jersey-based Terracycle to be recycled for the first time this year.
The Green Grove Initiative is excited to announce an expansion of our recycling program to include a familiar game day favorite — the Solo cup.
In the past, game day volunteers have reluctantly excluded plastic cups like Solo cups from game day recycling education, citing that the resources for their repurposing have not been available. Due to the low quality plastic that solo cups are made out of, most recycling centers are not able to accept these cups. However, with the help of Terracycle, a company out of New Jersey, we are able to send the cups collected in the Grove to be recycled.
With this expansion of the Green Grove Initiative, countless Solo cups that would have previously been deposited into landfills will instead enjoy a second life. In fact, 1,753 solo cups were recycled just from the Southeast Missouri game!
To recycle your Solo cups (and any other brand rigid #6 plastic cups), simply remove the liquid from the cups and drop them off in the nearest “I Tree Grove” green recycling bag, provided by a Green Grove representative. Or, pick up a green bag at the dispenser stations on the Union Plaza and in the Circle. Isn’t that easy?
By adding this simple step to your game day routine, you can help us reach our goal of 15,000 cups by the end of the 2013 football season.
Kendall McDonald is a junior public policy major and Green Grove intern in the UM Office of Sustainability. She can be reached at klmcdon1@go.olemiss.edu.